In the May 11 & 25 SN: High-tech cricket farming, AI learns from Minecraft, looking for lithium, a new hominid species is named, signs of life in dead pig brains, Cherokee cave texts decoded, water molecules on the moon and more.

The ‘super’ El Niño is over, but La Niña looms

The warm eastern Pacific waters that powered the recent “super” El Niño have dissipated, experts say. The difference in seawater temperature from the long-term average is shown here as the event fizzled during May 2016.

The agency estimates a 75 percent chance that El Niño’s meteorological sibling, La Niña, will take over in the coming months. La Niña conditions caused by relatively cool equatorial waters in the eastern Pacific can cause droughts in South America, heavy rainfall in Southeast Asia and can intensify Atlantic hurricane seasons.